What’s in a corporate name?

A rose, according to Shakespeare, would smell just as sweet if you called it by another name. Would any of these Massachusetts-based businesses, though, be the quite the same if they had different monikers? Here’s a look at some of the best-known businesses in the state, from restaurants to insurance companies, and how they got their names.
Next

Akamai, Cambridge

Akamai Technologies is a product of the 1990s technology revolution. Two MIT professsors founded the Cambridge company for an Internet cloud platform in 1998. Akamai is a Hawaiian word that means “smart, intelligent, clever and cool.” When so many businesses were coming onto the Internet scene during the dot com boom, it was in vogue to use Hawaiian words. The founders looked through a Hawaiian dictionary and found akamai. The founders and a marketing executive thought that those words were a good description of the people putting together this tech company, Akamai said.
Next

Gazelle, Cambridge

Gazelle, a Cambridge company that pays cash for used electronics, was founded in 2006 but didn’t take the name Gazelle until 2008. According to the company, the beautiful animal is in touch with nature and is renowned for being incredibly fast, sleek and lean, which are good qualities for a business, a website and anyone with a green sensibility.
Next

Hood, Lynnfield

In 1846 in Charlestown, Harvey Perley Hood started a dairy company delivering milk around the Boston area. Now headquartered in Lynnfield, the company named for its founder distributes all types of dairy products throughout New England.
Next

Vineyard Vines, Martha’s Vineyard

Vineyard Vines was started by two brothers who spent their best summers on Martha’s Vineyard every year. They traded wearing ties behind a corporate desk for selling them in 1998. The company, although now based in Stamford, Conn., was started and inspired by Martha’s Vineyard.
Next

Cains Mayonnaise, Ayer

John E. Cain began his cheese distribution company in Fanueil Hall in 1914. He solved the problem of mayonnaise always separating and introduced his company Cains All Natural Mayonnaise in 1924. Over the years, the company moved to Ayer, acquired other food companies and now produces all types of food products. But the name Cain has remained synonomous with mayonnaise.
Next

legalseafoods.com

Legal Sea Foods, Boston

Founder George Berkowitz opened his Inman Square fish market next to his father’s grocery store, Legal Cash Market.
Next

Scott Eisen/Bloomberg

Samuel Adams beer, Boston

Jim Koch named his company after Revolutionary War hero Sam Adams because he, like Adams, was born into the brewing industry. Koch also hoped to follow in Adams’ footsteps by staging a revolution of his own in the American beer market.
Next

Jim Davis/Globe Staff

Dunkin’ Donuts, Canton

Bill Rosenberg’s success with Industrial Luncheon Services, a company that delivered meals and snacks to Boston-area workers, prompted him to start The Open Kettle, a doughnut shop in Quincy, according to Dunkin’ Donuts public relations agent Brianna Schneider.

Rosenberg wasn’t thrilled with the name, however, and asked employees for suggestions for a new name. Head architect Bernard Healy eventually asked Rosenberg, “What do you do with a donut?” Dunk it, of course! Rosenberg changed his shop’s name just two years after it opened.
Next

David L. Ryan/Globe Staff

Necco, Revere

Necco, the company that makes Sweethearts, Mary Janes, and of course, Necco wafers, gets its name from the acronym for New England Confectionery Company. It was founded as the merger of three candy companies in 1901.
Next

mobiletor.com

Nuance Communications, Burlington

Nuance Communications is the creator of Dragon dictation software. Its name comes from the company’s mission to “continuously evolve the ability to perceive the nuance of words, actions and meaning,” according to its website.
Next

medwrench.com

Covidien, Mansfield

Covidien operated as a division of Tyco International and separated in 2007. “When we went to choose our new name, we really wanted a name that reflected who we felt we were,” Lisa Clemence, media relations specialist, said. “Co” comes from cooperate, symbolizing togetherness, and “vi” comes from the Latin root meaning “for life.”

The two dark blue Cs that border the cross in Covidien’s logo represent compassion and cooperation, two major parts of the provider’s philosophy, Clemence said.
Next

David Kamerman/ Globe Staff/File

Emack & Bolio’s, Brighton

In 1975, music lawyer Bob Rook started an ice cream operation in a Coolidge Corner basement as a place for musicians and fans to hang out after the clubs closed. Emack and Bolio, two homeless men and clients of the pro bono lawyers that often hung out at the basement, asked that the shop be named after them. Rook agreed, and the rest is history.
Next

Boloco via Twitter

Boloco, Boston

Boloco was started by three Boston University graduates in 1997 as Under Wraps, a taco and burrito joint inspired by San Francisco’s Mission District food scene. They changed the name to The Wrap after receiving a cease and desist letter from Marriott, claiming that that company had the rights to the Under Wraps name. A 2005 brand name analysis determined that yet another change was necessary, and so the name Boloco—a mashup of “Boston local company” was born.
Next

Winslow Townson/Associated Press/File

Raytheon, Waltham

In the 1920s, the American Appliance Company invented a small tube that replaced the expensive batteries found in radios at the time, making radios more affordable and catapulting them into homes nationwide. The tube was named Raytheon after the Old French word “rai” (beam of light) and Greek “theon” (from the gods). Eventually, the company adopted that name for itself.
Next

LoJack.com

LoJack, Canton

“LoJack is the antithesis of highjack,” Jeremy Warnick, Corporate Communications Manager, said. Former Medfield police commissioner Bill Regan started the company in 1986 after he nearly died while pursuing and trying to recover a stolen car. While he created the device in order to keep police officers safe, there are plenty of customers who have gotten some peace of mind from the tracker as well.
Next

buzzon.biz

Christmas Tree Shops, Middleboro

The ubiquitous Christmas Tree Shops did in fact start out as a holiday gift shop. Located on the Cape, it sold gifts and ornaments from May to October each year. Twenty years later, new owners Chuck and Doreen Bilezikian bought the shop and expanded both the number of stores and the inventory to include all manner of quirky—but cheap—items.
Next

keurig.ca

Keurig, Reading

Keurig, a leader in the instant coffee and tea brewing market, gets its name from the Dutch word for excellence.
Next

Wendy Maeda/Globe Staff/File

Fazenda Coffee Roasters, Jamaica Plain

Fazenda, a local coffee roaster and café, is named after the Brazilian term for a coffee plantation.
Next

Arbella Insurance Group

Arbella Insurance, Quincy

Arbella Insurance is named after the same ship that brought John Winthrop, Massachusetts’ first governor, and the first group of pilgrims over to America. The ship, incidentally, was named after Arbella Johnson, the wife of a wealthy shareholder in the Massachusetts Bay Company.
Next

Essdras M. Suarez/ Globe Staff/File

Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham

The lab supplier gets its name from Thermo Electron and Fisher Scientific, which merged in 2006.
Next

Virtusa

Virtusa, Westborough

IT consulting firm Virtusa based its name on the Latin word for excellence, “virtus.”
Next

Stephen Haines for The Boston Globe/File

Hydroid, Pocasset

Hydroid’s name has two meanings. Not only is it a combination of “hydro” and “droid” in a nod to its mission to create autonomous underwater vehicles, it’s also the name given to colonies of underwater polyps related to jellyfish.
Next

Jim Davis/Globe Staff/File

Vibram FiveFingers, Concord

“Vibram” comes from creator Vitale Bramani’s name. FiveFingers, of course, is a nod to the shoe’s unique design.
Next

High Street Partners

High Street Partners

High Street, a leader in international business software and support, is named after the street on which founder Larry Harding grew up.
Next

Banyan Advisors

Banyan Family Business Advisors, Cambridge

The enormous banyan tree, which spreads its roots both wide and deep, represents Banyan Family Business Advisors’ commitment to helping business families identify, strengthen, and expand their roots as their branches continue to grow.
Next

Elysium

Elysium is a Boston-based consulting company with experience assisting in technology-related cases. The name comes from Greek mythology.
Next

Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff

Citgo, Houston

Though it’s a Houston-based gas company, Citgo has a special place in the heart of many Bostonians. Citgo started out as City Services but changed its name in 1965. It retained the first syllable of “city” and added “go” to imply power, energy, and progressiveness. These three qualities are also apparent in its triangular logo, another product of the ’65 rebranding.
Back to the beginning